Two Minnesota ex-officers sentenced on federal charges in George Floyd case
By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) -Two former Minneapolis cops had been sentenced on Wednesday on federal prices stemming from the homicide of George Floyd, the Black man who was killed when their colleague Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck throughout an arrest.
At a listening to in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. District Choose Paul Magnuson sentenced Tou Thao, 36, to 3-1/2 years. Earlier on Wednesday, he sentenced J. Alexander Kueng, 28, to a few years, Andrew Luger, U.S. lawyer for Minnesota, stated in an announcement.
In February, Thao and Kueng, together with a 3rd officer, Thomas Lane, had been convicted by a federal jury of depriving Floyd of his civil rights and failing to come back to his support whereas Chauvin, a white man, choked him with a knee for 9 minutes.
Lane, 39, was sentenced final Thursday to 2-1/2 years in jail, whereas Chauvin was sentenced in February to twenty years and 5 months on federal prices associated to Floyd’s homicide in Might 2020.
“Every had a person responsibility and alternative to intervene within the extreme pressure that resulted within the agonizing loss of life of Mr. Floyd, however each males didn’t take any motion,” he stated, referring to Thao and Kueng.
After the hearings, Floyd’s girlfriend Courteney Ross stated she had hoped for stiffer sentences for each males.
“I’m saddened, however I suppose we now have to take all of those small triumphs and know that we’re going to transfer ahead,” she stated throughout a information convention.
A cellphone video of Floyd handcuffed and pleading with Chauvin for his life prompted outrage within the days after the incident, spurring large every day protests towards racism and police brutality in cities around the globe.
The 4 officers had been referred to as to a Minneapolis grocery retailer on Might 25, 2020, and tried to take Floyd into custody on suspicion he used a faux $20 invoice to purchase cigarettes.
Whereas Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s neck, Kueng positioned his knee on Floyd’s decrease physique and left it there for greater than eight minutes, prosecutors stated.
Federal prosecutors argued that the three males knew from their coaching and from “fundamental human decency” that that they had an obligation to assist Floyd as he begged for his life earlier than falling limp beneath Chauvin’s knee.
Chauvin was additionally convicted of intentional second-degree homicide, third-degree homicide and second-degree manslaughter in a state trial in 2021. He’s serving a concurrent sentence of 22-1/2 years on that conviction.
In Might Lane pleaded responsible to state aiding and abetting manslaughter prices and agreed to a sentence of three years in jail. A state trial is scheduled to be start in January for Thao and Kueng.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Modifying by Mark Porter and David Gregorio)
